“The debilitating loudness war has finally been won,” said mastering engineer Bob Katz on the eve of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Convention in New York City. The last battle will be over by mid-2014.”
“I have just completed loudness measurements of iTunes Radio using iTunes version 11.1.1. Tunes Radio’s audio levels are fully-regulated, using Apple’s Sound Check™ algorithm. This is a very important development,” Katz said.
During several hours’ testing, Katz measured the output level of several stations, and concluded that each song’s loudness averages -16.5 LUFS, within better than 2 dB, usually plus or minus 1.5 dB. The Apple release notes state that version 11.1.1 “improves stability”, which he interprets as having solved some loudness regulation issues which were present in the previous iTunes release.
